


Coming-of-Age

by MadamoiselleRomanova



Series: How Madzie Saved Alec's Life [5]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Child Soldier, Childhood Memories, Childhood Trauma, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Magnus is a good boyfriend, alec is so in love with him, if that freaks you out, look out for that, soft boys tm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-17
Updated: 2018-01-17
Packaged: 2019-03-06 00:47:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13399845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadamoiselleRomanova/pseuds/MadamoiselleRomanova
Summary: With Max’s coming of runing-age, soon he would be sent out on missions. The thought made Alec feel faintly ill. He tried not to think about it- it’s what they all did, it’s what he did, Jace, Izzy, all of their friends. Once you were runed and sufficiently trained you were expected to finish your training with experience in the field. What good is a soldier with no experience after all?





	Coming-of-Age

With Max’s coming of runing-age, soon he would be sent out on missions. The thought made Alec feel faintly ill. He tried not to think about it- it’s what they all did, it’s what he did, Jace, Izzy, all of their friends. Once you were runed and sufficiently trained you were expected to finish your training with experience in the field. What good is a soldier with no experience after all?  
He strummed lightly at the guitar while he ruminated.  
“Deep in the ocean, dead and cast away  
Where innocence is burned in flames  
A million miles from home, I’m walking ahead  
I’m frozen to the bones, I am…”  
His first mission was when he was 11, as he had begun his training early under Hodge’s guidance and his parents' orders. Izzy learned from both Alec and Hodge, however as she was younger and held less pressure from their parents she would not be expected to fight for a few years yet.   
He was sent out with two other shadow hunters, both 18. Allene Hightower and Derek Chaudhury. Derek was in charge of the mission- he was not very good at it. He ran ahead, reckless, looking to impress Allene. Alec was left behind, with shouted instructions to ‘keep up’ and ‘keep an out, kid’.  
It was bitterly cold in the New York winter, with only mission gear to keep his young body warm. He remembered shaking his hands constantly, so they wouldn’t tense up from the cold and be too unresponsive to shoot arrows. He had lost sight of the others, but he knew how to track demons. He couldn’t afford to fail his first mission, so he continued on, leaning into the biting wind.  
“A soldier on my own, I don’t know the way  
I’m riding up the heights of shame  
I’m waiting for the call, the hand on the chest  
I’m ready for the fight and fate”  
He had been told stories, of how in the heat of battle Shadowhunters would lose themselves in the midst of it all, feel an exaltation like nothing else. He wished he had felt that- but he felt nothing. He wiped the demon blood (not blood Alec, Ichor), from his lips, his breathing fast and short. Allene jogged up to him from behind, dropping a hand on his shoulder, startling him badly enough he pulled his blade on her.  
‘Sorry! sorry, I-‘ ‘-it’s okay kid, heat of the battle and all that right? Felt good didn’t it?”  
Alec looked at her numbly.  
‘… yeah. Good.’  
‘You did good for your first hunt, your parents will be proud.’  
Alec swallowed harshly. At least there was that. He nodded stiffly, his hands pulling behind his back in his formal stance he often took with clave officials and his mother.

“-Alec? Alexander, darling are you alright?”  
Alec looked up sharply, a quick breath in and wide eyes his only expressions of shock.  
“Seriously Alexander, are you okay? What’s the matter?”  
Alec shrugged it off-  
“Nothing Mags, just… just thinking. It’s nothing, really.”  
Magnus came to sit next to Alec on the chaise, wrapping a gentle arm around the tense young man.   
He whispered sweetly into Alec’s ear,   
“Darling, please tell me what’s bothering you, you’re worrying me.”  
Alec rolled his bottom lip into his mouth, biting down on it.   
“I- I was thinking about how old Max is getting, how-how he’s already gotten his first runes. They’ll be sending him out soon.”  
Magnus kept quiet, waiting for Alec to finish his thought.  
“I know it’s his duty- I know, really. I just- he’s so little Magnus. I was even- I was even smaller than him, but I had been training since I was a child. They say he’s nearly a man now- he’s not Mags, he’s not. He’s just a kid, he wants to read his comic books and write and draw his own, he shouldn’t be on missions he’s not- he’s not ready. He’s so small.”  
Magnus held Alec tighter, his arms winding around the tense man.  
“Oh baby… surely he won’t be starting until he’s closer to Izzy’s age at the very least.”  
“Magnus what..? How long do you think Izzy has been going on missions?”  
Magnus furrowed his brow, thinking. Izzy was very efficient in battle, however, she was only 16 going on 17. 15 seemed awfully young to send Shadowhunters- children- to fight, but it was a warrior culture.  
“…Fifteen?”  
Alec looks at Magnus in disbelief. Not in anger, just… befuddlement. Over 400 years living in the ShadowWorld and he didn’t know- of course, he didn’t. What Shadowhunters would have told him?  
“Magnus, we start training according to when our parents order it- Izzy went on her first mission at 13-“  
A sharp inhalation from Magnus-  
“-and I went on my first mission at 11, immediately after my runing ceremony. Jace and I weren’t even Parabatai yet, he wasn’t allowed to start field missions until he was almost 13. Caused a lot of tension between us, looking back.”  
“If you started your missions at 11, dare I ask when you started your training?”  
Alec furrowed his brow. It hardly seemed as important, seeing as you were in no danger in training but could die on missions.  
“Uhh… I guess I started learning runes when I was learning to read as a kid, the demonology and diplomatic stuff were more from around 8 onward I guess. Physical training was probably from the time I was… 6 or 7 maybe? I would have needed to be able to build enough muscle to hold up the weapons I had to learn to wield. They didn’t start me on sparring until I was 9 though, so I wouldn’t be fighting someone twice my size. I didn’t exactly keep a scrapbook I’m not sure exactly when I started things. I remember Izzy being really bitter about it.”  
“Bitter about you… getting to start early? It’s seen as a privilege?”  
“More as… a badge of honour I guess? The stronger a warrior you are, the more worthy a Shadowhunter.”  
Alec shifted uncomfortably at how visibly upset Magnus was- he knew it wasn’t normal to Mundanes, but this was different. They were Children of Raziel. It’s what they were made for. Alec didn’t think for one second Max would never fight, that was ludicrous. Alec thought that Max was too little still, too untrained. He feared for Max’s safety on missions, especially with subpar leadership.  
“It’s- it’s not as bad as you think Mags- we’re not mundanes, this is what Nephilim were created for. It’s what we’re meant to do, and we have to do it while we’re most physically capable. I just worry about Max- he’s the youngest, and he did a fair amount of his training in Idris- I just don’t know what his abilities are except that he’s too smart for his own good and too small to take on demons. He’s the baby of the family, you know?”  
Alec felt deeply uncomfortable in Magnus’ presence for the first time in a long time. Magnus did not seem convinced by Alec’s arguments, and Alec didn’t really understand why.

Magnus, on the other hand, was frozen in horror- his mind stuck on the new information he’d just been given. More than that, the information gathered between the lines. The complete lack of recognition that child soldiers should not be a normal part of one’s culture. It wasn’t that it didn’t make sense- Magnus knew they were trained to be warriors, knew they often died young (though he tried not to think of that too much, seeing as he was in love with one of the fools) in battle, and that the culture had a distinct lack of childhood, generally speaking. It was difficult, seeing the results of those cultural norms though when he had been so detached from the Nephilim that he hadn’t cared to pay any attention. Shocking maybe, Appalling perhaps. The thought of Alec, only a child going on a mission-

“-Alec?”  
“Hm?”   
Alec looked up at him, having been absorbed in his own thoughts once again.  
“What- what was your first mission like?”  
Magnus wasn’t sure he wanted to know but- there was a difference, however minuscule, between a kid following behind a routine patrol of experienced warriors, and a kid being sent out on a demon tracking and killing mission with other kids.  
“Oh- well my mom came into my room a week after my rune ceremony, where I got my first rune- the angelic rune- and told me I had been assigned my first mission. Special permission, due to my advanced skills. She said she was proud of my training, but that now it was my duty to honour the family name and my duty as a Child of Raziel. So she sat with me on the edge of my bed, and she told me she would share something special with me- the reason she had the deflect rune on her neck. I wanted to be as strong, as good a shadow hunter as my mother. What a joke right? Anyway, she-she liked that I wanted it- said I would make the family proud. She put it on my neck like hers was. It hurt like a bitch- it was only my second permanent rune and by the Angel, it was painful to put it on. Burnt into my neck, huge and irritated. I can practically smell it now. It takes some getting used to. One girl threw up at her rune ceremony from the smell alone. “  
“A few days later I was given a dossier on the mission- A couple of minor demons, possibly a mid-level one. Nothing insane, but too much for me to handle alone. So they sent me with 2 older shadow hunters, maybe around 18. They had a thing for each other- too distracted by showing off for each other and not concentrated enough on the mission. They ran off ahead, and I ended up losing sight of them. It was winter, and it was kind of snowing and pitch black. Of course, we were in all black so they were near invisible once far enough away. I ended up tracking the demons like Hodge taught me, figuring they would end up in the same place as me. And they did, eventually. I really think they stopped to make out somewhere, how else could they have taken so long.”  
“I ended up cornered by two, the low-level ones- Drevak demons. I tried to shoot at them- it was my best weapon to work with, but they were too close, and I hadn’t figured out how to shoot close range yet. I had to take them down with my seraph blades. I remember getting blood- Ichor in my mouth and eyes. I heard a noise so I wiped it off and tried to be stealthy- a difficult thing to do when your bow is nearly as big as you. There was a Behemoth. Not smart, but difficult to kill at the best of times. I followed it, and it lead me to my teammates, Allene and Derek, who were making out against a wall. Like absolute idiots. I found myself some high ground and shot at it, but it reformed too fast to do any damage. but it got its attention off of the idiots and got their attention on the demon. I ended up runing my individual arrows to catch fire and trying to shoot them before they could burn me, hoping the Behemoth would catch fire. It worked well enough that Allene could finish it off with her electrum infused morning star.”  
“It’s a bit of a blur, but mostly I remember being pissed at Allene and Derek, and the taste of Ichor in my mouth- I hadn’t learned to keep it shut yet, for that very reason. I remember my hands being burnt, and not realizing that the scent wasn’t from runes because my hands had gone so numb from the cold. I threw up at some point, on our way back when they weren’t paying attention to me. Thankfully they didn’t notice. You’re supposed to be excited, invigorated by your first hunt. Mostly I felt sick.”  
“When we returned the two of them were decent enough to tell everyone what I had done, so at least my mom was proud for a while. They conveniently left out why I was able to take demons down on my own- instead making it seem like I had run ahead to secure my first kill. But whatever, the adults were happy, and I was nearly counted as one of them since I had killed demons on my own. When I was allowed to go and clean up, Izzy barged into my room looking for details. She enjoys hunting, gets the thrill I was never able to get. I’m not someone who enjoys danger, I guess. She was asking so many questions and I freaked out. Ended up crying for the first time in years into my baby sister’s shirt.”  
“Unfortunate enough as is, but she was always a good friend when you needed one. However Maryse walked in, and any standing I had achieved in her eyes went up in flames at the sight of me crying into a 7 years old’s shirt. My first hunt went well in some ways, but I always felt it was a failure- I hadn’t managed to get the rush, to feel the vigor of fighting by the Angels orders, to get the adrenaline high. I was just… scared. A coward. And worse still, Maryse saw that firsthand.”  
There was a long moment of silence. Of processing the events spoken of. Magnus clenched his jaw, blinking back angry tears for his boyfriend.   
At first, he said nothing, not sure what to say, and just took Alec in his arms and laid them down, legs intertwined and faces inches apart. As their breathing evened out, their foreheads leaned into each other’s, and Magnus pressed a soft kiss to Alec’s lips.   
“You are not a coward, Alexander. You are the bravest man I have ever met. You don’t like to fight, but you do, because you like to protect people. My good, brave, Shadowhunter. What they did to you was Wrong, Alec. They should never have made you fight so young. You should have gotten to read comics like Max, and go to Idris academy, and be a kid- no, Shhh- I know you were exiled with your parents, but they shouldn’t have done that to you either baby. You shouldn’t bear the burden of your parent’s misdeeds. It’s not your cross to bare Alexander. They shouldn’t have made a child soldier out of you to try and redeem themselves. It’s not fair and it’s not right. You are more than just a tool for your parents, you are your own person. And for that matter, a person I love dearly.”  
Alec buried his head into the crook of Magnus' neck, taking a shaky breath.  
“I love you so much Mags.”  
“And I you darling.”  
They laid in comfortable silence, entwined in each other for a few moments before Magnus spoke again.  
“And anyway you know what they say about courage, don’t you?”  
“No, what?”  
“Courage is not the absence of fear but rather the judgment that something is more important than fear; The brave may not live forever but the cautious do not live at all.”  
There was a beat of silence before Alec sat up suddenly.  
“Did you just- did you seriously just quote The Princess Diaries at me?!”  
Magnus held a straight face for a second before his lip twitched up and he shrugged with an ‘innocent’ look.  
Alec started to snigger, and then Magnus joined in until they were both laughing leaning against each other. 

Everything seemed a little brighter when they were together.

**Author's Note:**

> I own nothing, SH belongs to Cassandra Clare and the TV peeps, and the song referenced at the beginning is Iron by Woodkid. Thanks for reading, if you don't like it don't comment if you do please let me know! Constructive criticism is welcome as long as you're not a douche about it. Please let me know if there are any mistakes, I'm posting this drunk at 3 am on a Tuesday cuz that's where I am emotionally rn.


End file.
